


between the devil and the deep blue sea

by the_hemlocked



Category: Original Work
Genre: Child Narrator, Family Drama, Family Feels, Gen, Kidnapping, Morally Ambiguous Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 12:26:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15315471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_hemlocked/pseuds/the_hemlocked
Summary: They told me there going to put Other Mama in jail for a long time. They told me I might have to talk to some people, but it will be okay because they will protect me, and then I will never have to see Other Mama again. They say that like I’m supposed to be happy about it.





	between the devil and the deep blue sea

Dear Jaylin,

When I meet my mother, her frazzled hair is pulled into a bun, falling out of place and sticking up as though it was made of lightning. Her hair is just like mine, but nothing else is the same. Her eyelids crease downward, pulling her face into a taunt sorrow. The wrinkles on her face are heavy around her eyebrows and mouth, and as she cries, they fold and deepen. 

She is exceptionally beautiful. 

Mr. Garcia, the one who got me McDonald’s yesterday, pushes a tear away from his eye, fast enough that his intention to be discreet is more of a distraction. He smiles at Mom as her long arms wrap around me and bring me close to her, my nose pressed to her neck, the smell of lilac and thunderstorms making me dizzy. I could breathe her in forever. I really could. 

“I’ve missed you,” she says, shuddering into me, her words muffled into the crook of my neck. “I never stopped looking. Never. Never. And here you are.” 

It has taken me eleven years, they say, but I am in my mother’s arms and she is holding me and I am home. I don’t remember her name, but that’s okay. There is so much time for me to learn and remember. 

“Hi, Mama,” I say back. “You’re really pretty.”

I’m crying too, now.

 

They told me there going to put Other Mama in jail for a long time. They told me I might have to talk to some people, but it will be okay because they will protect me, and then I will never have to see Other Mama again. They say that like I’m supposed to be happy about it. I guess I am. 

Other Mama’s hair didn’t look like mine. Her hair was long and black and straight, and my is all kinds of crazy. I know now that that comes from my real Mama’s side of the family and my eyes come from my real Papa’s. Mr. Garcia showed me pictures of them before she came to pick me up, and I remember thinking, oh wow. Jaylin won’t believe this! 

And then I got sad because you’re somewhere else with your parents. They told me I can write you letters maybe, but only if your parents say okay. I think that’s not very fair, because they were not always your parents, and me and you know each other more than they do. So I’m writing these letters right now, so that when they finally say yes, I can send you everything that’s happened to me so far. I'm just sad that we can't talk and rhyme and make up stories like we used to, face to face. But I guess this will do for now.

The car Mama drives smells like old french fries, and it’s cluttered with paper. Pink flyers and letters, bills and receipts. I pick one up from the backseat. In bold, black letters, my name is printed like a newspaper headline — extra! extra! read all about it! — and beneath that is an old photograph of me, one from so long ago that I don’t remember it being taken. My hair was crazy back then, too. 

Before I can read any of the little words, Mama reaches back from the front seat and snatches it out of my hand. “You don’t need to look at stuff like that,” she says. “It’s over. We’re going to put it behind us. From now on, we have a fresh start.”

I don’t say anything. Instead, I just stare out the window at Ohio. It’s green here. New York was pretty, too, with lots of trees and houses, but this place is alright. Everytime we pass a sign or a street name, I squeeze my eyes shut and remember it. That way if I ever get lost, I’ll know where to go. It was the old trick Old Mama used to teach us, get in case we needed to find our way home. Mama sees me doing this, but she doesn’t say anything. Her lips purse, but she keeps them shut, because the quiet around us is too fragile. 

Applecork road. 

Accident? Call attorney Gregory Reynolds now! 

Main street. 

McDonald’s. 

Lowest prices here!

Don’t text and drive.

“Madelyn.” 

Washington avenue.

“Madelyn.”

Fat Daddy’s BBQ.

“Madelyn,” Mama says, louder. 

“Sorry,” I say. Remembering places takes a lot of concentration. Madelyn is my name, these days. I wonder what yours is. I wonder what Other Mama’s was, or if she lied about that too, but thoughts like that just make me sad so I squeeze my eyes real tight again to forget. Then, open. 

Mama just smiles at me, but it tugs down at the corners and her eyes are pinched. “What are you thinking about, baby?”

Questions like that make me want to scream and rip out my too-wild, too-yellow hair. I hated it when Other Mama would ask things like that, because I never know the right answer. Sometimes grownups don’t really want to hear the truth. Sometimes neither do I. “I dunno,” I say, even though I keep thinking about Other Mama and you and my old home. Ohio is empty in ways New York wasn’t, even though my old home could feel empty late at night when Other Mama was working and the neighbors kept banging on the walls. I liked to press my ear against the wall that we shared with them and listen to them argue and laugh and live. My old house was quiet. Me and you weren’t supposed to be loud, because then we’d have to go to school. 

“Mama,” I say, and she smiles real big in the front seat. “Do I have to go to school?”

“Well, yeah,” she says, and I hold back a groan. Gross. “But first we’re going to have to test you for what you know. You would have been in third grade right now, but you might have to go to special classes for a while so you can catch up with the other students.”

“Yuck.”

Mama’s lips purse again. She does that a lot. “Only ten more minutes,” she says, but not to me. To the car or maybe to God. Me and you used to talk to God a bunch. Other Mama’s friend, Mr. George, was a preacher in the city and he taught us how to talk to God so that whenever we were scared or alone, or even when we weren’t and we were just happy, we could think our thoughts up to Him and He would listen. I prayed all the time, even though I always had you — and later we had Mary, but that’s why we got taken away. I miss Mary-baby’s cute, round face. She’s not old enough to write letters like you and me, but maybe when she grows up we can.

I wonder if Mama likes to pray. 

“Mama, do you pray?”

She glances at me, meets my eye through the mirror as her ringed fingers move the wheel to the left. “Yeah,” she says, a little hoarse. “I prayed every day. And God answered my prayers. Did you pray?”

“Oh, yeah,” I say. “All the time. He’s a good listener. Do you think Mr. Garcia prays?” He was so nice. He got me my favorite food from McDonalds and he didn’t even know it was my favorite!

“Mr. Garcia—oh, right, the poli—” She clears her throat. “I’m sure he does, honey. Now, uh, not to change the subject or anything, but you should know that your father and your sister might act a little strangely. Your sister, you haven’t met her, she’s only three. Things are going to take some getting used to, since you were… gone for so long. But in time, things will go back to normal.” Mama keeps talking, but I’m still stuck on a sister. A sister!

“What’s she look like?” I ask. Does she have blonde hair like me and Mama? Or maybe it’s brown. I bet she has a cute, fat face! I get so caught up in imagining all the possible babies that I stop paying attention to what I say. “I love babies! They’re so cute! Me and Jaylin were so excited when we got Mary! Mary was cute. She had brown hair but only a little bit on top, and her fingers were so small!” 

I miss Mary. 

Mama gets a tight, pinched expression, and her lips get all funny, shaking just a little bit. “Her name is Sarah. She’s got beautiful auburn hair, and the biggest eyes you’ve ever seen.”

“Does she have to go to school?” I ask.

“Not just yet,” Mama says, and this time her face isn’t quite as plastic, the smile a little easier. “Is it okay if I ask you something?”

I grumble under my breath. Dumb baby doesn’t have to go to school, so why do I? She probably doesn’t have to put up with so many questions from so many people either, even if Mr. Garcia is nice about it. Always the same things, too, like are you okay? And are you hurt? Who is this? Do you know this? Blah, blah, blah. And now Mama wants to know, too. “Okay,” I say.

“Did you— I know you mentioned… uh, Jasmine?”

“Jaylin.”

“Jaylin, right. And— Mary. Are they… Is that something you’d want to talk about? The doctors— It might be beneficial if you do,” she says, clicking and stuttering. I hate it when they ask questions and don’t even manage to get the questions out. “Help process your feelings. I know that that was a big part of your life for a really long time, but you get to start over with Sarah and me.”

Maybe I don’t want to start over. 

Then again, I’m kind of looking forward to meet Sarah. We didn’t get to spend much time with Mary and her little toes and cute laugh. She cried a lot, though. I hope Sarah doesn’t. 

“I want to write to Jaylin,” I say. I need to tell you about Ohio and my new baby sister and my new Mama and Papa. I need to know if you’re just as excited as I am. Just as scared as I am. 

New York was nice because after a while it was really familiar. Other Mama only took us out of the apartment sometimes, and we only went on the streets closests to us, although she promised one day she’d take us into the Big Apple. I never got the see the Statue of Liberty, even though I really wanted. Mr. Garcia came before we could do that, brought his heavy brow and cigarette smell into our apartment and looked at Mary and looked at you and me. He was only there for Mary, at first. Me and you were second. 

“Right,” Mama says, a little brokenly. I think she’s mad that my sister—my Other Sister, you, I mean, not Sarah—couldn’t come with us. You’re with your new parents. I could be wrong, though. I’m sure if Mama knew you like I do, she’d love you so much. Other Mama used to make jokes about how me and you were the best girls in the world! We were, too! We really were. We cleaned and cooked and everything and we helped take care of Mary for a little bit. “You know, Maddie, that we’re trying to get in contact with Jay— with her parents so you two can keep in contact. But, you also know that Jaylin isn’t her name, right? Her name is Rosa now.”

Rosa. Ha! As if you could ever be a rose. You’re way too stinky! You didn’t like to take showers often because the water was so cold. But your name is Rosa, I guess, and my name is Madelyn or Maddie or whatever, and Mary’s name is probably something else too. Other Mama’s name is “who cares?” Ha, ha. Who cares? Who dears? Who leers? 

Jaylin rhymes with so many things like failin’ and mailin’ and rainin’. Rosa doesn’t rhyme with anything, I don’t think. Brink. Sink. 

Rhyming is a good distraction for when there are too many thoughts in your head and they feel like their going to explode into one giant hurricane. I keep getting hurricanes in my head from thinking about you and Mary and Other Mama and how much I miss all of you. 

“You’da liked her,” I tell Mama. “Why can’t she live with us instead?” My voice whines more than I meant it to.

“She has to go home,” Mama says. “Think about her parents. They’d be so sad if they couldn’t see her again. It wouldn’t be fair to take her away.” Then, her tone deeper, she asks, “You know why it’s wrong to take people from their parents, right?”

Yes, but didn’t Mama and Mr. Garcia do that when they took us from Other Mama? They took us from her and now we’re supposed to have new names and new homes that aren’t in New York and we can’t even see each other. I wonder if you have any new sisters or brothers. I wonder if Mary will remember me when she’s older. I hope she does. She was so cute. 

“I’m a whole eleven years old,” I say. Duh. I know why taking people is bad, jeez, Mama. But it wasn’t fair to take you away from me too. 

“I know,” Mama sighs. The smile slips from her face, white snow melting into nasty grey-stuff on the sides of the street. “Eleven years old. We have a lot of birthday parties to make up. Which reminds me of a surprise! I was going to keep it a secret, but… Do you want to know now or when we get home?”

“Now!” I say. Maybe I have two sisters.

“Well,” she builds up, her fingers flexing on the steering wheel. “Ever since… Well, ever since. We’ve gotten you presents on your birthday just like if you were here with us the whole time, just so when you got back we would have so much to give you, because you are so loved, Madelyn. We’ve waited for this day—” She chokes up, eyes glossy. “We’ve waited for so long.”

“Wow,” I breathe. Other Mama got us presents too, but a whole eleven years worth must be so much. But I’m not happy like I should be. I don’t know why, really, but it just doesn’t feel right. It just makes me miss Other Mama more, because even when we didn’t have a lot of money, she always did her best to get us a toy or some candy. I don’t think Mama or Mr. Garcia get that. How much she tried. 

One time for my birthday, Other Mama took us camping. Do you remember that? We went to this place way out in the forest with some tents and some food, and all we did was sit around and tell stories. Other Mama’s hair got all frizzy, almost like mine, from being pulled back in a ponytail and being all sweaty. Me and you tried to catch all the ladybugs we could find, and then we would let them go. At first, I kind of wanted to squish them, but Other Mama shook her head at me and taught me about how life is sacred, for us and for even the littlest bug in the whole wide world. That weekend was the most fun I’d ever had. I was only seven back then, so you were still teaching me to read, even though you weren’t all that good ‘cause you were only ten, and we used to take the flashlight late at night inside our tent and read fairy tales together. Our favorite was the one about Rapunzel, up in her tower and her long hair that the prince used to climb to see her. We never read it all the way to the end because it was more fun to make up our own endings. I would be the prince sometimes and you would be Rapunzel and we would escape in a thousand different ways. I think we liked it so much because it was fun to imagine that we were secret princesses, but we just didn’t know it yet. Oh, Jaylin. That was the best weekend ever! 

I must have been thinking about the camping trip for a long time, because the next thing I know, the car is pulling into a driveway and Mama is parking the car. “Welcome home,” she says. 

When I get out of the car, I stand in front of the house and look. I’m afraid that if I blink, I’ll be back again in the apartment at New York and this will have been some crazy dream. But here it is, an actual house. With a door painted bright blue and a porch light turned on even though it’s the day, and a pink tricycle in the front yard and a play castle and a couple of Barbies. My Barbie is in my backpack with the fairytale book and my clothes that they let me take with me. The shingles on the roof are dark, and the wood on the porch looks crooked and dirty. The grass in the yard is long and tangling, reaching for the sky. 

I slip off my shoes and run into the grass, screaming. 

Mama just laughs and smiles, then cries a little bit while I dance. 

“I’ve never had a yard!” I say, really loud. I bet even you don’t have as good as a yard as me! I’m screaming and laughing so loud that the front door opens all at once—a bam!—and then a man walks out, his hair spiked and black and grey. His mouth is wide open, and behind his wide glasses, tears are already coming down his cheeks, but I know by now that when people cry when they see me, it’s because they’re really happy on the inside. 

Papa comes running outside, barefoot, and he picks up me from the grass, squeezing me tightly. I squeeze my arms around him back as he rocks me back and forth. “Oh, God,” he’s praying. “OhGodohGod. Thank you. My girl. My little girl.” He’s crying heavily, shoulders shaking, but I don’t let go. When he finally pulls away, he doesn’t put me down, just leans back so he can look at me in the face. His eyes bounce around all of me, and I do the same to him. We have the same eyes and nose and mouth, and I know that this is another one of those things that I’m going to have to remember just in case. “Hi,” he says. “Madelyn. You’re so beautiful. You’re so beautiful.”

You and I never had another Papa, so this one is a good start. He’s got the beard that old kings always have in the books, and his eyes are kind. You can tell a lot about people from the way they look at you, even if their eyes are really dark and hard to see. His eyes are like mine. I move one hand from behind his neck to the area between his cheek and his eye, feel the plane of his face first, then mine. 

A squealing noise comes from behind him, and Papa finally sets me down to turn to look. Sarah teeters when she runs and her little curls bounce all around. She stands behind his legs and pushes the bottom of her butterfly shirt into her mouth, but then Papa takes it out of there.

“Hi,” she says, smiling with all of her little white teeth.

“Hi,” I say back. We’re going to be best friends. She giggles, her voice shatteringly high in pitch, and I can’t help but laugh back. She squeals again and runs back inside, only slowing to climb the three stairs on the porch. 

“She’s a little shy,” Papa says. 

“I love her,” I tell him. 

 

Mama and Papa show me to my room which they haven’t changed a bit. The walls are still pink, and the bookshelves are still mostly empty, but the crib that they used to have has been switched out for a bed. And on the ground, deceratoring every little piece of blue rug, are presents! Wrapped up and in bags and sometimes both. Papa’s the one who claps his hand on my back and tells me to get to it, so I race in and start unpacking at the speed of light. A dozen books and stuffed animals and cute clothes — some which won’t fit me now but would have years ago probably — pop out at me. 

“Thank you,” I say, tearing up but not in a happy way. I mean, I am happy. I am. I like the books and the toys and stuff, but it’s sad because they don’t actually know that I hate dumb Junie B. Jones and what I really like is your real life princess stories. They don’t know that red is my favorite color or that I actually prefer science kits to fashion supplies. But that’s okay. They never got the chance to know.

Other Mama knew. I never had to tell her. She just knew. 

“I’m glad you like it,” Mama says. “Next March, we’ll have a big party and you can invite all your friends from school over. How does that sound?”

I pause for a moment but nod. “That sounds good.”

I forgot my birthday was in March now. It used to be in June with Other Mama and your’s was in December. Things have been going so fast lately that it’s hard for me to squeeze my eyes real tight so that I remember these kinds of facts. Mr. Garcia said it would take time. They all say things like that. 

 

We didn’t always live in New York back with Other Mama. We lived in New York for the longest, but before that we also lived in Massachusetts and Virginia. Other Mama always bought us a lot of books for us to read about the history of the place we were living, so that way we just didn’t learn fiction and the like. She used to buy all kinds of books for us! That’s why I don’t need any school, but Mama and Papa just get all mad when I bring that up. They don’t like to talk about Other Mama. To tell you a secret, sometimes I still talk about her with Sarah. Sarah doesn’t care if I talk about you or Mary or New York. I whisper it to God, too. 

Otherwise living at my new home is pretty easy. All I gotta do is not talk too much about Other Mama and just talk about anything else, and do some chores sometimes, and help Mama take care of Sarah. I don’t have to take my school test until next week, so that I can “get settled.” After that, though, it’s school tests and tests with this lady I don’t know yet. Mama says her name is Dr. Jane and she’s going to help us all be a family again, but I don’t think we really need help. Me and my Other Family got along just fine without ever seeing any fancy doctor and taking a bunch of stuffy old tests. 

Sarah’s too little to go to school, and Mama does her work over the computer, so we get to stay home all day to take care of her, but sometimes we go to the park or to the library. Every time we do, Mama watches me carefully, all tense like a hawk, and sometimes I think great big wings are going to pop out of her back from where her shoulders hunch over. Me and Sarah hold Mama’s hands all the time when we’re outside, which is kind of embarrassing because the other people my age don’t do that. When we went out with Other Mama, she just told us to stay in sight. My new Mama must be afraid that I can run really, really fast, but the truth is, I can’t. I used to race you all the time down our hallway, and you’d always win. 

My new Mama doesn’t like racing, even though I could definitely beat Sarah. Whenever she runs, her little legs kick up everywhere and her fists curl into tiny fists, but the best part is that she doesn’t even get mad when she loses. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know she’s supposed to be mad, so she just laughs and laughs. Her and Mary are so different, because Mary cried all day. I guess that’s why Mr. Garcia came to see her. But the times Mary did smile, those were some of the best moments in our apartment. 

Mama’s letting us look at the kids’ books in the library, and while Sarah only cares about the ones with pictures and the toys in the corner, I pick up a book that has a knight in her armor on the front side but on the back she’s wearing a dress. It looks like something you and I would read, and even though it looks too big, I get it. It will just take me longer to read, and besides, I’m not a baby, so I don’t need baby books like Sarah does. 

When we walk out of the library and back to the car, a lady in a tight skirt comes running up to us, smiling. Behind her is a man with a big camera, so big that it sits on his shoulders and has lots of cords that are connected to the lady’s microphone. Mama’s face blooms the brightest red, and she picks Sarah up and puts her on her hip, then grabs my hand and starts walking away from them as fast as she can without actually running. The books I put in my bag come sliding out, and I have to tug on her arm to get her to stop so I can pick them up. 

“Jesus Christ,” she mutters, closing her eyes. 

“Ma’am?” The lady approaches, her heels click-clicking on the pavement. The big camera looks right into my face. “Ma’am, I understand this is a difficult time—”

“You don’t say—”

The lady bulldozes on, her words bumping into each other. “But your story gives so much hope to the people of the community and I was wondering if we could collect a short statement?” Her eyes flick between Mama and me. “She doesn’t have to be in the shot, Ma’am, just anything, please, it’d really help the station out.”

“Uh-huh,” Mama says, shifting Sarah back up on the top of her hip. “Get your goddamn camera out of here. My daughter and I just want to be left alone, thank you very much.”

“That’s a bad word,” I say, just in case Mama doesn’t know. Whenever you or I cussed, we had to put money in a jar. When we were good, we’d take all the quarters and coins out and buy ice-cream from the little shop down the street. 

“Please,” the lady says again, this time looking distressed as she motions something toward the guy with the camera. “Is it everything you imagined? Do you have any comment on what happened to your daughter? A statement about Jean Rapport?”

The line of Mama’s mouth flattens, and she leans in. “Fine,” she spits. “You want a statement? Here’s a statement. I’m over-fucking-joyed my daughter is home with me. For eleven years, I’ve waited to see her grow up, and you vultures can’t even let me do that in peace. It’s been one shit show after another, and I’m sick of it. Go fuck yourselves. And Jean’s going to burn in Hell. Maybe you’ll see her there.”

With that, she tugs on my arm again and drags us back to the car. When she gets into the driver’s seat, she slams the car door shut and the tires squeal as she pulls out to the road. When I look out the window, the lady is still standing where we left her, but this time she’s looking at the camera and saying something into her microphone.   
When Papa gets home later, she tells him what happened then goes back to the bedroom to take a nap. Then Papa and me and Sarah make our own personal pizzas together. Jaylin, you wouldn’t believe how delicious they were! But Mama doesn’t come out of the bedroom for a long time, even though we made her a pizza too, so that kind of ruins it. 

 

Something weird about living here is that Mama and Papa seem to think I’ve never done anything. Like when I’m watching Spongebob on the TV and they say, “You like this show? It’s called Spongebob. You used to watch it as a baby, too.” I know what it’s called already, though, because I used to watch it all the time on Other Mama’s laptop, but when I tell them that, their faces squeeze up as though they just smelled something bad. “Right,” they say. “Of course.”

They get weird whenever I mention anything. They think I didn’t read or watch TV or do anything, not even go outside ever, when we were living with Other Mama. Like Mama asked me the other day if I knew how the swim, and duh, of course I do. When we went camping, there was that lake that you and in doggy-paddled in forever. But even mentioning that, Mama gets all sad and has to go back to her room again. 

Mama and Papa are nice people. But I really wish we were back with our Mama. Then things wouldn’t be so strange and awkward all the time. I keep saying the wrong things, but I’m not sure why. You’d know. Hopefully your parents let us write letters soon, because you know basically everything. I could really use some advice.

 

Dr. Jane is even shorter than Mama is, and that’s saying something. Her room is so nice though, with these long, white couches, and she even has a bowl of candy in her drawer. She makes Mama and Papa step out so she could take to me alone and then she pulls out this whole big bowl and says, “Now that the adults are gone, you and me can relax a little.” I pick up M&Ms by the handful.   
She tells me that I could talk to her about whatever I wanted or we could just color and be quiet, so we start coloring and talking. “How’s living with your mom and dad?” she asks, picking a pink crayon from the table.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I miss Jaylin and Mary, though.”

“Are you in contact with them?”

“Nah,” I answer as I’m scribbling my elephant blue. “But her parents might let me write her a letter.” Letter, better, let her, met her, left her, deader, letter. 

“What’s that?” Dr. Jane asks, raising an eyebrow at me, but not in a mean way. She’s smiling at the corners of her lips, like she’s trying not to. “What were you just saying?”

“Rhymes.”

“Do you like rhyming?”

“Yeah.” Then I start thinking about you again, and those hurricanes in my brain start making a mess of everything, and you know how I am. I just start talking sometimes, and I’m not so good at being quiet. “It’s a game me and Jaylin used to play, to see who could come up with the most rhymes for a word, only they had to be real words or else you lost. Me and Jaylin used to rhyme with so many things, especially if the neighbors were being loud or if there was lightning or something. We’d just rhyme. Time. Lime.”

“Mime, crime,” Dr. Jane says. “Oh… Well, now I don’t know. It’s a little bit difficult thinking of words under pressure, isn’t it?”

I like her a lot. She doesn’t even frown when I tell her about Other Mama. The only time she does frown is when she exaggerates a pout when I whine about having to take tests for school.

 

As it turns out, I have to go to a class this week to meet with my new teacher and classmates. They’re going to just let me watch the first day so I can get used to school, but I had figured it wouldn’t be so different from what you and I would play. I hope your school is fun. Are they making you go to school too? That wouldn’t be very fair considering you’re so smart. If you are, I hope it’s better than mine, because school is not at all like we would play. They make you sit in desks all the time, and the class is super boring, and the other kids can be really rude. 

This one boy in my class has glasses that continuously slip down his nose, and every time he pushes them back, he gets his fingerprints all over the lenses. “Aren’t you that girl?” he asks me, not bothering to even ask for my name or wait for the teacher to stop talking. He just leans over from behind me and whisper-yells it in my ear.

“What girl?” I ask. It’s such an odd question that I don’t know what he means at first.

“Oh, boy,” he says, sniffing up his snot. “I mean, they all thought your mom had killed you, y’know. Was on the news and everything, but they never found any evidence, so.”

“My mom?” I don’t know which one he means, and I don’t remember ever hearing about Mama or Other Mama trying to kill me. Other Mama would never, ever hurt us. 

“Oh, yeah,” he sniffs again. “I heard about it from my mom—”

“Gary,” Mr. Roberts finally says. “Please stop talking to your friends and start paying attention. We’re going to go over our new grammar rules today, and you never know when a quiz might happen.”

Jaylin, I hope the people at your school aren’t quite as dumb at the people at mine. Not Gary, I don’t really care so much about him. But every adult thinks whatever they want to think, and they don’t want to hear what I have to say. They think everyone’s your friend except for the people that you actually love and the people you actually love are people who’ve hurt you. But that’s the thing. I don’t ever remember being hurt with Other Mama or you. 

I know I have Sarah, but it’s not the same. 

Jaylin.

I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this. 

Please, please, write to me soon. 

 

The news people are really starting to bug Mama.

We’re eating breakfast without her again, Sarah up in her high chair and me at the table. Papa stills smiles at me when he looks at me, even though I know when he looks away, it slides away as though it had never existed. “How are you liking school?” he asks. 

I shrug. “I like reading time.”

“Have you made any friends?”

I don’t know how to tell him that no one wants to be friends with the weird girl. They call me zombie girl in the hallways sometimes, and Monika even showed a video on her iPhone of Mama from years ago, crying on the news as she went to court. “All they had was circumstantial,” Monika said. “Which I guess is good considering she didn’t even kill you.” No one wants to be friends with the girl whose Mama almost went to jail because of some dirty clothes in a car trunk. 

She still has the car. The one that they thought she killed me with or in or whatever. Sometimes I wish—well. Nevermind.

“Yeah,” I say. My acting isn’t great, but he falls for it anyway. “Tons.”

“Tell me about them,” he prods, slicing up another strawberry for Sarah. 

Sarah blinks at me, as if she’s picked up on the fact that I’m clearly hesitating. “Gary,” I finally say. “And Monika. They’re in my class. There’s also Elizabeth who’s not in my class but I play with her at recess.”

Elizabeth doesn’t really play with me. I tried to be her friend but she just looked at me and said, “Aren’t you a part of the special ed?”

“Yeah,” I said, but that was the wrong answer. She took off, running towards her own friends and didn’t look back. The only person who ever hangs around me is Miranda, but that’s more because she’s lonely too, not that she actually likes me or anything.

Miranda likes to ask questions that I don’t really feel like answering. I’m tired of explaining. You’d get that, right, Jaylin? 

But Papa doesn’t know any of this. He just smiles and tears up and says, “I’m so glad you’re fitting in. We’ve all really missed you, the whole community. It’s not everyday that… that we get happy endings in life, but this is ours.”

“Uh-huh,” I say. I pick up one of Papa’s strawberry slices and try to hand it to Sarah, but she only squishes up her nose and says no. Funny. When I do the same thing, people say I’m broken. But I’m not. I hope you’re doing okay, Jaylin. Things are really weird here. Mama keeps going to the bedroom and not talking to me, and Papa’s trying, he really is, but it just never seems to come together all the way for him. 

 

Gary keeps bothering me at school, asking all sorts of things about what happened to me, but he doesn’t believe me when I say that nothing happened. Then he makes up stories about us, and I just get so mad! I can’t stand it here at this school! Things are better with Sarah, but it’s awful here. I miss New York. I miss the apartment. I miss our loud neighbors, and the pie Other Mama would bring home from the diner, and Mr. George teaching us all about God, and that angry, pee-yellow cat that used to hiss at us from the fire escape. I miss the time before Other Mama brought Mary home and ruined all of this. I know it’s not actually Mary’s fault, because she’s just a baby, but if Other Mama never took her home, then none of this would have happened. We could still be there. 

Everyone’s so happy that I’m home with my parents and my baby sister, but I don’t know them. They’re strangers. They laugh over breakfast and give me eggs even though I don’t like eggs, and when I tell them that, they get all sad because I liked eggs when I was a baby, and they don’t want to talk about anything that’s ever happened because they can’t stand the thought of me being happy without them. I hate this. I hate this! 

Do you remember that time Other Mama punched that old man square in the jaw? It was just outside of the convenience store, and he was blue in the reflection of the fluorescents. He had those deep, deep circles under his eyes that people only have when something in their soul is rotting away, like when you haven’t slept in days or when you miss someone real bad. That man’s eyes scared me to the point where I couldn’t look away. And then when said those nasty things, Other Mama came up and just—pow! bang!— he was on the ground! Then she stuck her nose up in the air and said, “Well. Come along, girls.” She was my hero that day. I can still taste the pickle we bought from inside in my mouth. 

Other Mama was like that. She was good on the inside, and she loved us an awful lot. I’m not sure why no one else will believe me when I say that. 

I want to go home, but I guess this is home now. 

I have bags under my eyes.

 

Papa says, “Your mother and I probably won’t be able to take you to school anymore, so you’re going to ride the bus.”

“How come?” I ask.

“Well,” he breathes, pushing back against the kitchen chair. It’s another morning. Somehow, they keep coming. “I’m going to have to go into work earlier than expected, and your mother is… going through some things right now. The best thing we can do is be supportive of her, and sometimes that means we go to the bus instead of waking her up in the morning.”  
Dr. Jane, yesterday, said the best thing I can do is move on with my life and make new friends. 

Before that, Papa said the best thing I can do is forget all about Other Mama.

Before that, Mama said the best thing I can do is process my emotions and talk about it.

They keep changing their minds, even when I squeeze my eyes shut and do my best to remember what they say. I want to be happy. I do, but everything is so new, and your parents still don’t want us to talk, and Mr. Garcia hasn’t checked up on me even though he promised to. 

I think I’ve cracked the code, though. The best thing I can do is agree with whatever someone else says is the best thing I can do until they change their mind. Adults don’t get people like us. They turn and twist and make things up then change their minds, but you and me and Other Mama have always been straightforward. “No bull,” she told us both. “I’m not going to lie to you, so you don’t lie to me.”

But that was a lie, wasn’t it?

 

Mama doesn’t like it when I watch the news, because they keep talking about us. A stern looking man tells our story as though it’s a bad dream, only smiling when they get to the happy ending, the waking up, as if everything is better now that we’re here. 

“We have it on good word that all three girls were unharmed,” he says, making eye contact through the television screen. “Patricia was returned to her family just three weeks after the incident, and both of the older girls—one who was eleven, the other thirteen—have also been returned to their families. One of those girls, miraculously, was the community’s very own Madelyn Reiner. Any comment, Linda?”

The woman in the red dress sitting next to him grins with all of her teeth and doesn’t notice the smudge of lipstick on one great big pearly white. “Sure, David. All of our hearts broke a little over eleven years ago when Hal and Susan Rei—”

The TV buzzes, static interrupting before the screen blinks and goes black. The living room chills as I turn to see Mama behind me, the remote in her hand. “You don’t need to be watching things like that,” she says, but I want to. I want to know what they’re saying, why Gary and Miranda think that— that— 

“How come?”

“Because,” Mama says, her voice stern. “We need to move on from that part of our life.” She smoothes down a part of her hair, breathing out of her nose, face going loose. “Why don’t we watching something else, huh, honey? As a family.”

I like my Mama and her wild, blonde hair and her thunderstorm smell, but I loved Other Mama and her soft, black hair and her tired eyes after working two shifts to get us dinner. I like Mama’s flyer-riddled car, but I loved Other Mama’s old van with the dream catchers and the magazines. I loved Other Mama’s apartment in New York and her clutter and our toys, and I loved baby Mary, and I loved our family. I don’t get why they all think this would work, why taking me away to people I’ve never known would make me happy.   
I guess it’s cause they didn’t do this to make me happy. They did it for Mama and Papa and little Sarah, even though they would have all been better off if I had stayed in New York instead of moving to stupid, cow-shit Ohio. My face burns. 

“You just don’t want me to watch it ‘cause they talk about how you tried to kill me,” I say, even though Mama was found not guilty and I wasn’t dead and it wasn’t her fault. I say it for the sole reason of making Mama hurt like I do. 

Her smooth discipline shatters, eyes welling with tears and lips quivering. “That’s not true,” she whines. “I need— when you’re ready to apologize to me for saying such a horrible thing, I’ll be in my room.” 

And then she leaves. Sarah wanders out from wherever she had been hiding and asks for a snack as Mama’s walking down the hallway, but Mama just ignores her and locks the bedroom door behind her. “C’mon,” I say to Sarah. “I’ll get you some apple slices.”

 

Jaylin, I’m still waiting for you to write me a letter. Dr. Jane says that I need to give it time and that I should spend more time with my “real” friends. That’s what she said. She said real, like you were made-up. She doesn’t know that I don’t have any friends. I don’t want any. 

Do you remember when we were little, all those times Other Mama would take us to the park and I would beg her to let the other children come to our house? There were so many movies about sleepovers and best friends, and I really wanted one. Then she told me that you were my best friend, and even though that’s true, it didn’t feel like enough. Dr. Jane says that was isolation.   
When I think about growing up here in Ohio with Mama and Papa, I wonder how different it could have been. Maybe Mama wouldn’t be so sad. Maybe Papa would know how to fix things. 

But that didn’t happen. Mama is. Papa doesn’t. 

We’re running out of time.

“—turn of Reiner,” the news lady is saying. A different one this time, on another channel. It doesn’t matter which one I watch. They all talk about me eventually. “Authorities say that the girls were periodically moved from state to state, the last one being New York, where, of course, Jean Rapport allegedly kidnapped six-month-old Patricia Turner. The baby was missing for three weeks when neighbors of Rapport began complaining about a baby crying despite Rapport’s denial of having a child. They eventually alerted the police, and local hero Daniel Garcia was the one to finally find the girls.”

“Wow,” says her co-host. “What a happy ending! Rosa Klinkerman had been missing for thirteen years when she was found, and Madelyn Reiner had been missing for eleven. So nice to put that case behind us, after the trials of her mother, who was tried for manslaughter and then acquitted.”

“Right,” says the news lady. “Jean Rapport, the alleged kidnapper, has pleaded guilty to three charges of kidnapping in the second degree. She’s been sentenced to a minimum of twenty years in prison, with eligibility for parole after ten.”

“All three girls are back home and safe,” her co-host finished. “What a stroke of good luck.”

Luck.

Duck.

Muck.

Fuck.

 

Dear Jaylin,

This is the last letter I’m writing you. I’ll keep them in my backpack for now, so when I do find you, you can catch up on everything. I hope you’ve been writing letters, too. I’d love to see what they say. I’m also taking some clothes my new Mama and Papa got for me, that library book I told you about, and some snacks. 

I don’t like living here. 

I don’t like everyone assuming I’m happy.

I wish they’d never found us. Is that a bad thing? I know that our parents would have been sad, but. They’d already been sad for so long. I think I messed things up by coming back. Mama seemed so happy at first, but she’s never around to take care of us. She doesn’t even notice when I don’t go to school. Which is a lot, actually, for reasons I’m sure you understand. I don’t need. I can read and write just fine. I hate that classroom and the stupid teacher and all the stupid kids who laugh at me. I hate the kids who look at me with their sad doe eyes even more, with all their are you okay and what was it like and I think it’s really cool. 

It’s not cool.

It sucks. 

I’m taking Sarah with me, too. You’ll like her I think. But Mama’s not too good at taking care of her, and Papa’s too busy living in his own world where everything is fine. I’m coming to find you. Me and Sarah, we’re going to find you.

And after that, the three of us can go find our real Mama. It’s okay. I know exactly where she is.

Your sister, forever,  
Evelyn Rapport


End file.
